Caribou Hunt

[Daubsnu1]

I did a fly in / drop DIY caribou hunt in 2005, north of Dillingham Alaska. The flew four of us in, dropped on lake with two inflatable pontoon rafts. We rafted the river, camped and hunted along the way for an entire week. 60 miles river total. They picked us up on another lake a week later.

Amazing trip! No sat phones or InReach at the time...we just went. Brought a 30-06 and a 7MAG, and two 44 handguns. Hunted in pairs...one guy carried the rifle, the other a 44 (bear protection : )

The outfitter we used is no longer in business. We did put tag on a nice bull and a cow. Lots of meat for our travels.

It's not the drive in trip you are looking for, but something to consider.

And this was the very first time I had ever slept in a tent! I would do it again in a heartbeat if I could find someone to go with me. Cost at the time was $1,800 per man for the flight in and out. I think I paid another $1,000 for tags and flight from Nebraska to Anchorage and back. But that was 2005.

This...

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[Daubsnu1]

Some things I wish I would have known before we hunted Bou in Alaska:

Good rain-gear is a MUST! Locals called my Gore-Tex, "Leak-tex." They all wore Helly Hansen rubber rain gear. Know that in Alaska you are going to be wet...plan accordingly. My Gore-tex MTo50 worked well. I do recommend bibs vs. rain pants. better protection.

Bring a poncho. Wish I would have. Hunting buddy would throw the poncho over himself and backpack for added protection when it really rained. When it was just spitting (like it did 80% of our trip), standard rain gear was good to go. But that poncho would have been nice when it really rained. And it doubled as a shelter when needed, or something dry to sit on when glassing.

Bring camp shoes / boots. Hunting buddies brought tall rubber boots for wearing around camp. Allowed them to dry hunting boots for longer periods of time. And we camped near river...so those rubber boots served you well.

Bring tent with rain-fly that goes all the way to the ground. Buddies recommended this as a "must have." Glad I did.

No cotton, ever. Bring all poly clothing. Even in 2005, this was a must.

Also brought hip waders, but never really hunted in them. Mainly used when we were rafting down the river.

We didn't bring spotters...wish we would have. Bring best optics you can. Distances are HUGE in AK.

Caribou are big animals, the pack out was tough. And the terrain in Alaska is difficult to walk on. Muskeg and tundra is not like walking in the lower 48. It's tough on a guy's feet and legs. Get good boots!

Your guns and gear are going to be wet the entire time you are there...just plan on it. The stainless / synthetic stocked 7MM mag did much better than the blued / wood stocked 30-06 on our trip.

Bring a camera of some sorts, and extra batteries, way to charge. I took 140+ pictures on our trip. That was in 2005. Wish I took more.

Be prepared for bears. We didn't see any, but saw lots of scat. Didn't see any wolves either, but they are there. Be ready.

These days, I don't leave my truck with out my InReach. Highly recommend. I mainly hunt alone here in NE. And I'm drive-in, day hunter...never more than 5-7 miles from my truck. The InReach and the Garmin are with me E V E R Y time I leave the truck.

Holler if you have questions. Happy to help.

 

[Diesel]

Daubsnu1's experience along the river was very different than our experiences out in the tundra. We definitely needed hip boots due to so much boggy areas. Point being that you need to know the terrain where you will be hunting.

We had completely different weather too. Very little rain but high winds.

I took a spotting scope from Nikon. It was a 65 if I remember correctly. My 10x50 Swarovski binos outpreformed the nikon spotter. Lesson was take the very best glass you can beg or borrow. I would take 12x or 15x binos and a tripod if I was going again. Sold the nikon when I got home.

We saw griz every day, some very close. They ate the carcasses of the bou we killed and buried the rest. They can be incredibly fast. I use a 30.06 for everything but when staring down a griz it seemed mighty small, glad I didn't have to test it out on him. Slept with the rifle loaded right beside me every night just in case, but never really felt any fear, just precaution.

Very interesting reading others experiences. Note everyone who has been there says it was a great trip.

Daubsnu1, how were the skeeters and flies?

 

[MNBill]

Thanks, guys! Great info and a lot to think about!

 

[mproberts]

Great insights guys! I'm headed up on a fly-in hunt this summer with a couple of guys and wanted to throw a few questions out there as well for the group. We will be north slope out on the tundra, flying in from the Dalton. Thanks in advance for any help guys, Alaska is a new frontier for us.

1) thoughts on bringing a small game gun? like a pack in or break down .22
2) do thermacells work up there with the massive amounts of mosquitos?
3) worth buying a wolverine tag? looks like they are spread incredibly thin and the tag is expensive
4) Is some basic fishing gear is worth bringing, I gotta assume those lakes are easy fishing and could help breakup the mtn houses?
5) Diesel, did you have a bear fence? We are "on the fence" about bringing one, wondering if it's worth the weight?

 

[Wetwoodshunter]

I have never done a caribou trip yet but I have one booked this year. Here is a breakdown for my costs. I have booked with a reputable service that has a lot of experience BUT I was lucky enough to book a cancellation hunt form my group, which saved us $1,000 per person.

Drop camp - $1,500 per person, normally $2,500
Flights to AK - $1,070 per person
Tags (wolf and caribou) - $710 per person
Food - ??
Tips - ??

My hunt is going to cost me right at $3,300 before I add in food. The outfitter is supplying cooking gear, tents, and jet boat ride into the wilderness.

 

[btbowers98]

I have never done a caribou trip yet but I have one booked this year. Here is a breakdown for my costs. I have booked with a reputable service that has a lot of experience BUT I was lucky enough to book a cancellation hunt form my group, which saved us $1,000 per person.

Drop camp - $1,500 per person, normally $2,500
Flights to AK - $1,070 per person
Tags (wolf and caribou) - $710 per person
Food - ??
Tips - ??

My hunt is going to cost me right at $3,300 before I add in food. The outfitter is supplying cooking gear, tents, and jet boat ride into the wilderness.

Which guide services are you useing? Im in the market for a trip


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[Daubsnu1]

Diesel: I don't remember the skeeters being a problem. We hunted Wood-Tikchik State Park north of Dillingham.

1) thoughts on bringing a small game gun? like a pack in or break down .22
- we had tough time finding caribou...hunted hard...really no time to spend looking at small game for us.

2) do thermacells work up there with the massive amounts of mosquitos?
- again, I don't remember the skeeters being a big problem.

3) worth buying a wolverine tag? looks like they are spread incredibly thin and the tag is expensive
- We never saw a wolverine in the area we hunted. Would be cool to get one thought.

4) Is some basic fishing gear is worth bringing, I gotta assume those lakes are easy fishing and could help breakup the mtn houses?
- we talked about this, but weight was a concern on our fly-in trip. We were close to the limit, and decided against fishing gear.

5) Diesel, did you have a bear fence? We are "on the fence" about bringing one, wondering if it's worth the weight?
- I like the idea of a bear fence.

Wetwoodshunter: that looks like a great price! About what I spent in 2005. We had to bring all our own cooking gear. Our outfitter provided the plane ride in and out, and the inflatable rafts to use. That's pretty much it.

They dropped us off at Nishlik Lake, and we rafted down the Tikchik river to Tikchick Lake, where they picked us up. Total rafting distance was 60 miles. Here is the old web site for Freshwater Adventures, the outfitter we used. I read the plane crashed in 2012.

 

[Daubsnu1]

Found a video of the Outfitter and same plane we flew in for our trip. Our pilot was not the man killed in the accident.

Grumman Goose / Freshwater Outfitters

Sad the pilot lost his life. Another more detailed report of the accident is here.

Dillingham is a small town you can only access via boat or plane. It's the regional hub of the Bristol Bay salmon fishing district...we were there in the "off season" and all the salmon boats were stacked on dry land for the coming winter.

We were looking for some food and went in to the only restaurant / diner in town. The place was virtually deserted.

Waitress was a cute college girl who looked completely out of place. She said loved the outdoors and was here with her boyfriend, a cook in the kitchen. They spent non-working days camping and hiking. She bragged that no-one was from this area, and challenged us to figure out where she was from. Said not one person had guessed her home state right.

I sat back and listened...detecting a faint hint of an accent in her voice. My buddies guessed Pennsylvania, Michigan, Colorado...all wrong.

I sat back and kept quiet...One of my old co-workers was originally from Fairbault, Minnesota and she sounded similar.

She looked over at me and said, "what about you...gonna guess where I'm from???"

"Say the word boat?"

"F#@k you!" She quickly replied...

"You are from Minnesota!" I said, grinning ear to ear.

She smiled and walked away to put in our order, knowing I nailed it.

My buddies all howled with laughter. I will never forget that interaction. One of the few times I actually got it right.

 

[FairbanksFlies]

I took a couple of 60-somethings up the Dalton a few years ago. We only made it a mile from the truck before they knew good and well that they weren't carrying a caribou back... if they even made it to five miles to be legal. The bow hunt is the way to go up there if you are dead set against flying.

Here's the way to know if you want to do the walk. Once spring arrives in Minnesota, find a really long corn field. Not just a medium one, but a long one. Wait for the farmer to plow that field (assuming they still plow rather than no-till), and then start your practice caribou hunt. Light pack at one end, walk across the clods and uneven patches and soft spots. Get to the other end and load up the pack and walk back. Know that half of your caribou (including the antlers!) are still at the other end of the field when you get to the truck, so do process again.

The practice hunt described is the day trip version. If you want to give yourself a better shot at success, go with the full pack on the trip out and then make three trips to get caribou and camp back to the truck. Quickly you will realize that you might not want four, but rather two caribou.

 

[Daubsnu1]

^^ that's the best description I have read regarding walking in the muskeg / tundra of Alaska! ^^

It's waaaay harder than I could have ever imagined. And packing those two caribou we shot 2+ miles back to camp was hard as heck.

 

[Diesel]

mproberts,
About the .22, The only small game i saw was an artic fox. No ptarmigan, but it could have just been where we were.

Skeeters were bad around the water. We flew from Anchorage to Lake Clark (stunningly beautiful) and overnighted before flying out to the tundra. We fished with loaner poles from the outfitter, caught grayling as fast as you could reel in while in Lake Clark. Only opportunity to fish we had.

Wolverines are a rare sight.

Skeeters were not a problem on the tundra, probably because of constant wind.

No bear fence

We used outfitter provided cabelas 8 man dome tents. Very impressed, held up in 70 mph winds so loud you couldn't here each other in the tent. Don't eat the berries, got the runs and stomach was upset for two days.

The outfitters have lots of stories. Don't walk into the prop of the plane, not pretty. Lots ways to get hurt up there if you are not paying attention.

Wetwoods,
That's about what we spent and I would think that is a real good deal by todays standards.... if the service is decent. Ours was excellent. Food was just the only real negative.

We planned an extra day in Anchorage on both ends of the trip just in case and to not be rushed. Turned out to be a smart move. After getting back to Anchorage after the hunt, we had a fantastic meal at the Millennium Hotel which was greatly appreciated after hunting food. Have heard not so good reviews since we were there.

We shipped our racks unsplit from Anchorage and they arrived at home in perfect condition.

I only mention the negatives to stress to everyone to beware.

You know that recalling these trips is almost as good remembering it as it was doing it.

 

[Diesel]

Just remembered something else I did that may be good to consider. I took a blaze orange flag about 24" x 30" put a couple of grommets in the edge and took some zip ties. There were no trees to speak of where we were except a few 12' aspens. I climbed up and zipped that flag as high as I could reach. The tundra looks flat but is really rolling little grades and bogs. It is difficult to pinpoint camp exactly because it was so featureless. That flag was super to be sure exactly where the tent was when out 3 miles or so.

I guess you young guys probably have gps stuff nowdays, but it sure made a difference for us.

Daubsnu1, We saw thousands of caribou on the flight out, the Mulchatna herd was near record numbers. 2 tags each. I will never forget looking down and seeing caribou as far as you could see across a 3 to 4 mile wide valley. All moving in one direction and it went on and on and on. Simply awesome and worth the whole trip right there. From what I can gather now that the herd is really down. When you hit the migration right, it is unbelievable.

 

[hodgeman]

1) thoughts on bringing a small game gun? like a pack in or break down .22
2) do thermacells work up there with the massive amounts of mosquitos?
3) worth buying a wolverine tag? looks like they are spread incredibly thin and the tag is expensive
4) Is some basic fishing gear is worth bringing, I gotta assume those lakes are easy fishing and could help breakup the mtn houses?
5) Diesel, did you have a bear fence? We are "on the fence" about bringing one, wondering if it's worth the weight?

1. If you can swing the weight- yes....22 is legal for game birds up here a shotgun is also a nice to have.

2. To a point...sometimes there's just too many for anything except a bug net...bring two.

3. Wolverine? Not a chance. I might see one a year...and I hunt 80 plus days annually, they're just spread too far and too thin to spend the $$$.

4. ABSOLUTELY.... grayling fishing is fantastic and most of that country has great fishing. If you had to pick this or a .22....take the fishing gear. Fly rod will be light and more fun.

5.Bear fence is a good idea, particularly when you leave camp. Coming "home" to a trashed camp is no fun.

 

[Daubsnu1]

Daubsnu1, We saw thousands of caribou on the flight out, the Mulchatna herd was near record numbers. 2 tags each. I will never forget looking down and seeing caribou as far as you could see across a 3 to 4 mile wide valley. All moving in one direction and it went on and on and on. Simply awesome and worth the whole trip right there. From what I can gather now that the herd is really down. When you hit the migration right, it is unbelievable.

Diesel: Awesome you got to see the big heard all together and migrating! Unfortunately the Caribou were few and far between on our trip. We probably saw five 'bou the entire week...and thankfully put two on the ground. Still a great trip! I learned so much and got to see a part of the world that few people experience.

Another thing I remembered from that trip: rafting down the Tikchik river. Growing up, our family had a cabin on the Platte river here in NE, and I had good experience running jon boat, navigating current, etc.

We had two rafts on this hunting trip, and the other three guys always wanted to ride with me. I knew how to read the water, stay in deep water (preventing the get-out-and-pull-your-raft situations). Can't tell you how many times the other raft got stuck, ran under trees, had to walk. Once they got an oar stuck in the sand, and knocked one of the guys in the river. Laughed our tails off. That was probably the only contribution I had on this trip, being a complete noob to camping and having never Caribou hunted.

Good times and good memories. Glad I found this thread...i'm remembering some good stuff from 2005.

 

[mproberts]

Thanks a ton for the input guys. We pack pretty bare bones, so we might be able to find room for some of that extra gear I listed. Thanks for confirming what I thought on the wolverine tag, it would be different if I was obsessed with the idea of harvesting one, but for the money and the density I will definitely skip buying the tag.

Yeah we are pretty excited about the trip, it's just a lot of logistics we are still trying to figure out. It seems like everything with Alaska presents an obstacle, and finding the cheapest way to accomplish any task takes a good amount of research. Just looking at the flights and shipping prices alone there seem to be a lot of different options and things to consider as far as getting us there and meat back... but thanks again guys for the input, it really is invaluable.

 

[Deadhorseoutfitters]

check us out

Deadhorse Outfitters, LLC. - Fairbanks, Alaska | Facebook

we are in Northern Alaska DIY Caribou and world class fishing while at camp

 

[chucko]

caribou

I would highly suggest flying out to me the most thing in caribou hunting is time.Too many folks head to up here for a 7 day hunt to get weathered or otherwise delayed.Caribou are fickle creatures and a barren wasteland can turn epic in a day as well as the other way around.I have been going out with Matt of NAT for over 10yrs and his expertise in the western arctic is unmatched.If I were you guys Iwould just fly out take a sat phone and stay put th
ey will come time is the most important thing